Monday, 17 August 2009

THE RED, WHITE & BLUE BNP FESTIVAL, PART 4 - SATURDAY NIGHT

Late on Saturday afternoon another friend of mine managed to get on to the RWB site after hours of trying to get in. I had the chance to disappear and do my own thing as one of my chatroll friends, Bear, took over for half an hour. I was enjoying myself so much checking the stalls and buying things to send to my American friend that I collared Councillor Cliff Roper and his wife into taking over from Bear. This gave me more time to check out everything that was on site.

My American friend Lisa has the same views as us so I bought one of the signed limited edition cards of Nick Griffin specially made for the Red, White & Blue. Last year I sent her a RWB t-shirt which now hangs in a frame in her hallway alongside framed pictures of The Beatles and Paul McCartney. I also got her some BNP rock, or candy, as she calls it and some picturesque cards of Derbyshire. She loves that sort of thing. Lisa, when you read this I want you to know that I can’t wait until you come over next June. (Don’t tell anyone but she’s bought her ticket already and I know she’ll be bringing me some Reeces Peanut Buttercups, yummy!)

Anyway, back to my story. I don’t know where they came from, but by the time I got back a couple of young girls were running our stall. I was only too glad to let them. Firstly because it was hot and I was tired, but more importantly it gave them something to do. It gave them responsibility and they thoroughly enjoyed being ‘grown up’. They spent the rest of Saturday and part of Sunday running the stall and taking cakes and slices of melon to quench peoples thirst, round the crowd. They did a brilliant job and earned plenty of cash to chuck into the Amber Valley BNP kitty.

Later on, my friend Paul and I had a walk around, grabbed some food and went into the political marquee to watch the comedian, Mad Frankie Waller. The evening’s fireworks had been cancelled because of the wind but Frankie was so funny. Contrary to what the BNP opposers think, Frankie wasn’t telling racist jokes. He was actually telling jokes that centre around our own people; Richard Barnbrook being one recipient. Everyone left the show on a high and went off to do their own thing.

I was dead on my feet by this time so said I was going to go back to my tent and have an early night. Paul, who had only popped on site for the day decided to stay over and we went back to my tent. We had a chat about the day’s events and tried to get some sleep. Sleep was never going to happen. I was just starting to nod off when I heard the loudest snore, followed by another and another. Who the hell was it? Arran was in the next tent and he was one of the offenders but there were two more. As one snore ended another one started. It was one long and constant snore. Oh no. There are two things that annoy me. One is smelly feet and the other is… you guessed it, snoring!

No matter how hard I tried I just could not get to sleep so in the end I got back out of my sleeping bag and reached for a biscuit. Chocolate is always a comforter but it wasn’t working and there’s only so much chocolate you can eat before throwing up. At one point I was going to get out of the tent and kick Arran through his tent. That’d stop him but it wouldn’t stop the other snorers. I couldn’t go round kicking the other snorers. Or could I? I could always ‘kick and run’ and hope they didn’t spot me. No, I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea. Knowing my luck I’d fall over the guy ropes. They’d be sure to spot me then along with the people whose tent I’d just managed to rip down in the process.

So, me and Paul decided we would just have to wait and hope they’d shut up. We sat chatting to drown out the noise and laughing about things that had happened that day when something ‘pranged. Someone had tripped over one of the guy ropes. I heard a voice asking if he could come. It was DazG, another friend from our British national party chatroll room. He’d been next door in Lippy’s tent but she had fallen asleep and now he was bored. All the excitement, lack of sleep and a few cans of Stella is sure to get to you. I said of course he could come in. The cheeky bugger asked me if I was dressed and I told him in a stern voice ‘Of course I am.’

I would like to say that DazG entered my tent gracefully but he didn’t. It took him 5 minutes to open the door – with my help – and then he sort of nose dived, fag in one hand, can in the other, into the tent and nearly crashed through and out the other end. Now, I don’t mind people drinking, I love a few myself, but when you are sober and someone is pissed they may as well be from another planet.

We spent the next hour talking about… Well, to be honest I have no idea. It was sort of garbled jibberish with me repeating ‘Ya what?’ every two minutes. The next thing I know is DazG’s can of Stella was on the floor of the tent. He was swinging his arm around, gesturing, and over it went. Not that much beer came out. The damage was done by the onset of something that resembled an erupting volcano. Stella froth foamed out at an alarming rate and me and Paul dived for the can. Paul won and I nearly got a black eye by banging into him.

It was about 2am and I was not amused, but I kept my cool. After all, he didn’t mean to do it and let’s face it, we all do it. I decided that he spilt it so he should clean it up and sent him off to get some tissue from Lippy’s tent. I thought that by the time he got there he may have forgot WHY he was there and forget to come back, but he didn’t. As he was attempting to get out of the ‘door’ - small tent entrances are nothing like a door. More like a catflap – DazG lost his balance, fell with one hand on the floor and the other hand, complete with cigarette, heading towards the roof of the tent. I grabbed hold of his fag hand, grabbed the fag and wouldn’t give it him back until he had left the tent.

He was back quicker than I thought with something in his hand. He fell through the door once again, somehow managing to miss the puddle of Stella, and handed me a pile of tissue. Not just any tissue. He had retrieved it from the bin by the look of it. It was covered in… something. I have no idea what. No way was I going to use that to wipe my bedroll. God knows what germs were on it. I had some toilet roll so I used some of that. When it was dry I asked Paul to turn the bedroll over just in case it was still damp. The other side would be dryer.

Underneath was a lake of Stella. All over the sewn in base of the tent. Every time we moved it was spreading further and further. How the hell were we going to clean up that lot? We could have done with a boat pump, there was so much of it. So, off I sent him again. In the meantime I used more toilet roll to soak it up, followed by babywipes to try and get rid of the stench of sour alcohol and stickiness.

When DazG returned, I decided it was time to get rid of him. As lovely as he is, I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax. He’d either set us alight or drown us. Then I heard a lovely sound. Lippy was stirring. I told DazG I needed to go to the loo and that Lippy was awake again. Paul also said he need the loo. Daz said he was coming with us.

The toilet block nearest to us had four toilets. It was about 100 yards away and we had to walk between lots of differently sized tents. This meant there were guy ropes everywhere. When I bought my tent it came with an accessory pack. A torch that you fit on your head was included and I had hung this up in the tent to act as lighting. I took it down to guide us to the toilets. DazG was slower and less sure footed than us – you would be after copious amounts of Stella – and he tripped yet again over a guy rope.

We finally got there and I entered a cubicle. That meant that three others were empty. For some strange reason DazG decided to ‘go’ in the hedge right next to a cubicle and when I came out, there he stood, manhood in hand – it was either to small or too dark to see it - only just managing to miss his can of warm booze. We made our way back to the tent, made our excuses and DazG staggered towards Lippy’s tent. Paul and I spent the next half an hour listening to Lippy telling him to fuck off into the other bedroom and leave her alone.

Finally all was quiet. No snoring and no DazG to babysit for. But we still couldn’t sleep. Someone was walking around with a torch lighting the tents up. Maybe it was security, I don’t know, but it was bloody annoying. So there we lay in our sleeping bags, over-tired and wanting to sleep but not being able to. By now it was well passed 3am and it was freezing cold.

Paul’s sleeping bag is shaped like a mummy. He is well over six feet tall and to fit in it fully meant that he couldn’t move his legs. I was ok because mine was oblong shaped. Plenty of room in mine for a midget like me. We started talking about how we would create a new range of sleeping bags designed to keep you warm and allow more freedom. The idea of having arms sown into a sleeping bag turned into the vision of an oversized romper suit made of pink fluffy material, complete with fluffy tail and bunny rabbit ears. We were in hysterics. It’s strange how when you are so tired your imagination runs wild. We laughed at the thought of the uaf outside jumping around in these romper suits shouting their usual stupid one-liners. At one point I must have fallen asleep for a split second while talking, because I woke up still talking and wondering if the sentence fitted in with what I’d said previously. It was definitely time to shut down and recharge. We were talking crap and our batteries were drained.

The next thing I knew it was four hours later. It was 8am. People were bustling about, the monstrous noise of the portaloo was in action and my eyes felt like I’d gone two rounds with Mike Tyson.